Archipelago
by trufflemores
Summary: 4.01. They're islands, but they're still there for each other. Barry's recovery takes longer than anticipated.


Curled up on his side, Barry sleeps on the floor.

Mirroring him on their bed, Iris props her head up with a hand to look at him, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest. He looks peaceful, arms tucked towards his chest, frantic movements halted.

He shivers gently, but Iris doesn't disturb him. He didn't want the thick, honey-colored blanket that she offered him, shaking when she draped it over his shoulders and relaxing when she removed it. She tried not to take it personally, but she couldn't banish the memory of him curled up in one of their main room chairs, wrapped in his blanket. It was his favorite, thick and soft and Speed-worn over time. Some small corner of her hoped that feeling it would bring him back.

 _This may be all that's left_.

He groans; she tenses. With an anguished cry, he jerks upright, clutching his head in both hands. Sweat dapples the back of his shirt, and she can hear him heaving for breath. "I'm okay, Iris," he gasps, making the hairs on the back of Iris' neck rise. "I'm okay—" He breaks off with another aching scream, louder than the first, and she slides off the bed and wraps her arms around him as he sobs in pain.

Head on his shoulder, so tired it hurts, she feels him tremble underneath her. "Oh, God, it hurts," he gasps, barely audible. Tears spill down her cheeks, hurting in a way she didn't think she still could. "Please, help me, _help me._ "

She squeezes him tightly because she remembers that night: rushing into STAR Labs after Zoom brought The Flash to the CCPN, staring in horror as Barry bled out on a table while Cisco shouted and Caitlin frantically worked, red stripes of blood painting the floor where they had half-carried half-dragged him to a gurney no-time-no-time to assess as his blood pressure plunged and his heart rate surge and his only response to it all was a single anguished cry. Then, under his breath, almost quiet enough to ignore, he begged them, over and over: " _Make it stop, make it stop, please, it hurts, it hurts, I can't – I can't breathe, I can't breathe—_ "

Struck to her core, Iris couldn't cry. She could only hold onto his hand and squeeze it hard, letting him know she was there. Cisco filled the emotional void for her, tears streaking down his face, but he still passed Caitlin her tools. Dry-eyed, Caitlin proceeded, hurting him to help him, her hands steadier than Iris' could ever be in that moment. Finally, mercifully, with stomach-sinking suddenness, Barry passed out cold.

She reaches up and nests her hand in his hair, cradling the base of his skull. "You're not there anymore," she promises quietly as he trembles in her grasp, gasping for breath. "You're not there, Barry." He twists towards her, pressing his forehead against her shoulder and tangling his long lanky arms around her waist, clutching her with aching fervency. "Okay? I won't let anything happen to you."

He whimpers and says, "The stars, the stars, bright, blue, twisting—"

She thinks about that flash of lightning, brilliant blue, and scratches his neck soothingly. "That happened," she says slowly, sleep-rough and steady. " _Happened_. You're safe now. You're safe. You're safe…" She repeats it until he stops shaking, hand still tracing patterns across his neck. "You're here, I'm here, we're safe."

"Safe," he murmurs. "Safe, safe – always late." Then, pulling back to look at her, he begs, "I – I didn't mean to, it was – was an accident, I swear, I would never – I'm a _cop_." His voice cracks. "I didn't see her, I didn't see her – I –"

"I believe you." She cradles his head with both hands, insisting softly, "Barry. It's okay." Pulling his head down gently, she presses a kiss to his forehead and holds it there, his arms still tangled in the back of her shirt, his heartbeat very fast against her. Leaning back, she encourages him to follow her, to stand. Then, letting go, she settles on the bed, and he settles near her, lying down and wrapping his arms around her belly. Pressing his head against it, he nuzzles lightly, and a low, gentle rumble builds in his chest.

"Emerald blue and azure green, golden, golden, iris red," he tells her. A tear drips into his hair. "Stars are scars."

Running a hand through his hair, she settles against the headboard and says nothing. He fills the silence, a little too fast for the hour, her sleepy mind following only every third word. "I love the sea, I love the way the sand feels on my feet, I want to walk the shore until my soul doesn't hurt anymore, I want to run, I want to run, but no matter how far I go, there are stars and stars and stars and stars…"

She doesn't know exactly when he stops talking because he Speed-purrs in his sleep, a melodic, soothing vibration that resonates in his chest. It lulls her into a stupor, half-conscious, and she can almost pretend everything is the same, that he wasn't gone for six months and they're getting married and everything will be _okay_.

But it's not the same, his cheek scruffy when her thumb grazes it, and she tries not to let reality sink in, pushing it as far from her as she can. _This may be all that's left_ , she thinks, and hates herself for wanting more.

With him lying against her, she pulls up her phone and quietly casts out a line into the rest of the world, begging for help. Cisco and Caitlin are – should be – asleep, and Dad finally persuaded Wally to come home after it became persuasively clear that he wasn't running anytime soon on his leg, but she doesn't text them. No – she taps into that most ephemeral of spaces and cautiously types _dementia_ into the search bar.

It's more than she expects. She scans the stories of other souls with her hand tangled in Barry's hair and his breath against her belly, soft, consistent. It's easy to lose herself in the text, hours drizzling away as she scrolls on. The portents should scare her – articles like _Dying From Dementia_ loom from the search pages – but panic never comes. Maybe she's too tired. Or maybe he's too real, and young, and soft against her, and it can't be happening to him.

It was a search like this that haunted her on a night long ago: warnings of brain damage and memory loss and motor impairment staring back at her without hope of remission. Some people never manifested symptoms – but many were scarred by lightning, physically and mentally. She wanted to prepare herself, to be ready, to know how she would respond if/when Barry woke up, but she only found herself sick with the knowledge.

 _He might not be the Barry you knew._

She didn't want to believe it, pushed it as far from herself as she could, because it was too close to her in the dark, and cold, and silence of the room, with Barry's lifeless body breathing mechanically beside her.

He snuffles in his sleep and cuddles closer and she shuffles down the bed so she can hold onto him. "Stars," he tells her shoulder. "Red stars like irises…" Yawning, he tapers off, snoring softly in seconds.

She almost sets her phone aside, almost falls asleep, when a related search catches her eye. Keeping an arm draped around Barry's back, she clicks on the link and reads, silent, curious. A quiet sort of hunger fills her as she goes back and sifts through article after article talking about living with, and thriving in, a long-term recovery environment. A recovery that may never take them to a place like before, but can still lead to a life together, a _happy_ life together.

She never thought she'd welcome the possibility that Barry's condition resembles a stroke more than dementia, but she also never thought she'd see him again after he disintegrated before her eyes in that terrible machine half-a-year-ago.

Brushing her hand up and down his back, she closes her eyes and resolves not to look for the man behind the curtain but to embrace the one right in front of her, the Barry she loves, the Barry she wants to know again. The Barry who still quietly, but irrepressibly, loves her.

Resting her chin on his head, she dares to be patient with him, because he's here, and it's more than she ever thought she'd have again.

 _I love you_ , she tells him with a kiss to his hair. _I love you._

And when she dreams, she holds onto him, and he stays with her.

. o .

It's hard, and it's frustrating, and she'd love to say she believes every second they'll get through it, but sometimes it doesn't feel that way –

But then there are moments like this, sitting on the couch with his favorite honey-colored blanket wrapped around her shoulders as he sits on the floor beside her with a notebook and a black Sharpie and draws and draws and draws. The window's open, letting in the last of the fresh fall air before the winter chill settles in. She writes and he draws, and sometimes he looks up at her and she pauses to look back, and then he looks down and very slowly draws a circle before pressing the book to his chest.

When she doesn't respond at first, he returns to his drawings, turning a new page carefully and starting a new circular pattern. But then she says, "Love." He looks up at her and then back down at the page, carefully drawing another circle and pressing it to his chest again.

Sentences are still beyond him – cohesive, controlled sentences; memories burst out of him in full form, long, rambling, intense soliloquys that can carry on for hours – but she doesn't need one to hear the message.

 _I love you._

She sets her laptop aside and sits on the floor next to him. Gently, hesitantly, he passes her the marker, and she takes it. With shaking hands, he gives her the book, his sacred book of symbols spelling words she can't read, and then he settles them in his lap and looks at her, intensely focused. Without overthinking it, she draws a simple circle, lifts the book, and presses it to her chest.

Tears fill his eyes, and a slow smile curves his lips, and it's not and never will be perfect, but it's a start.

It's a start.


End file.
